User GuideVersion 1.1

CONTENTS

Quickstart 3 .......................................................................................................

Introduction 4 ....................................................................................................

Installation 5 ......................................................................................................

3 ways to trigger claps 6 ...................................................................................

The Front Panel 7 ...............................................................................................

Display 7 ................................................................................................................

Mics section 8 .......................................................................................................

Clappers Section 9 ................................................................................................

Master Section 10 .................................................................................................

Effects Section 10 .................................................................................................

Rhythm Xpander Section 11 .................................................................................

Keyboard Modifiers 11 ......................................................................................

Credits 12..........................................................................................................

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QUICKSTART

Five easy steps to get handclaps into your song:

1. Download the installer package

2. Install Hand Clap Studio on your computer

3. Launch your DAW of choice

4. Create a software instrument track with Hand Clap Studio

5. Press Play - Hand Clap Studio will start clapping on the 2 and 4!

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INTRODUCTION

Thanks for buying or trying out Hand Clap Studio!

Hand Clap Studio is a sample-based instrument focused on quickly getting great sounding handclaps and fingersnaps in your song. The samples were recorded in the well renowned Atlantis studio in Stockholm by house technician Micke Herrström, and the claps were professionally executed by percussionist Pelle Jacobsson from the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Hand Clap Studio contains more than 700 samples, with multiple velocity layers and round robins.

Due to the strong transient and short duration, handclaps and finger snaps can be tricky to record. Multiple microphones were used to capture the sound, but the ones that sounded the best and were included in the final product were:

• Close mics:

‣ Neumann KM 86i (condenser)

‣ Cascade Fat Head (ribbon)

• Room mics: stereo pair of MicroTech Gefell M930 (condenser)

• Echo Chamber: stereo pair of Line Audio CM3 (condenser)

All mics were recorded into ProTools through an Atlantis’ Neve desk with 1084 preamps. We hope that you will like and get much use from Hand Clap Studio!

The Robotic Bean team, November 2019

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INSTALLATION

Hand Clap Studio comes in three flavours: VST3 and AAX (Win/Mac), and AU (Mac).

When buying directly from Robotic Bean, you will receive a license key that can “unlock” Hand Clap Studio from the Demo Mode. If you got Hand Clap Studio from a third party store, you will receive an activation code, which you can enter into Hand Clap Studio to issue a license key.

Follow these steps to install Hand Clap Studio on your computer:

1. Download the installer package. Links to the packages were included in the email from the shop, or please visit roboticbean.com.

2. If you are on a Mac, open the installer package dmg (disk image file).

3. Double-click to launch the installer, and follow the instructions.

4. Open your DAW of choice.

5. Create a track with Hand Clap Studio.

6. In the Display, click Activate.

7. Enter the name you used when buying, and the license key or activation code you received by email.If you got Hand Clap Studio directly from Robotic Bean’s shop, please note that the name is case sensitive and should be entered with the same spelling as it appears in the email.

8. Click Activate.

9. If you entered an activation code rather than a license key, Hand Clap Studio will ask for your email and contact Robotic Bean’s server to automatically issue a license and unlock Hand Clap Studio.

All done! Your licensed copy of Hand Clap Studio should now be installed.

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3 WAYS TO TRIGGER CLAPS

Hand Clap Studio consist of two parts: the instrument (that produces the clap sounds) and the Rhythm Xpander (a pattern sequencer).

There are three ways to trigger the claps:

1. Click the Trig button on the HCS front panel This triggers a clap according to the selected Clap Type and other settings. The button plays louder in the middle than closer to the edges. Since most DAW’s do not record the output from the Trig button, this button is foremost an audition function.

2. Let Rhythm Xpander trigger the claps When you create Hand Clap Studio, it automatically starts clapping on beats 2 and 4, which in 9 times out of 10 is just what you want. But you can of course edit this basic pattern. You can also automate the Rhythm Xpander On/Off button to make it start and stop in different parts of the song, and you can switch between two programmable patterns, A and B.

3. Record the claps in your DAWThe claps can also be triggered by recording MIDI notes in your DAW’s sequencer. The four Clap Types are spread out on keys C-F across the keyboard (see pic). To avoid double triggering, it’s most often a good idea to set the Rhythm Xpander to OFF, but the two triggering methods can be combined.

You can also combine metods 2 and 3 by dragging Rhythm Xpander patterns into your DAW’s sequencer, which creates a MIDI clip. Don’t forget to switch Rhythm Xpander off afterwards to avoid double triggering.

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THE FRONT PANEL

DISPLAY

Here you see a visualisation of the Clappers in the stereo field. Each Clapper is represented by a ring. The room microphones are represented by a box drawn with a continuous line, and the echo chamber microphones by a box drawn with a dotted line.

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MICS SECTION

Here you select and set the level for the different microphones at your disposal.

1. Close Mic Switch - Choose between Condenser (Neumann KM 86i) and Ribbon (Cascade Fathead). Overall, the Ribbon mic has a slightly softer attack, and less treble.

2. Mic Balance - Sets the balance between the Close and Room microphones (ambience). You can think of it as a Dry/Wet knob on a reverb.

The Atlantis studio has a really nice echo chamber, an empty room with hard non-parallell walls. By putting a speaker and microphone in the room, you can use it as a reverb. We sampled the echo chamber responses, and included them in HCS.

3. Echo Decay - The echo chamber has quite a long decay time, about 5s. With this knob you can shorten the decay of the samples.

4. Echo Level - Set how much of the echo microphones you want to blend in.

5. Trig Pad - A button to trigger the claps. Click in the middle for higher velocity. Clicking this sends MIDI notes to your DAW, but not all DAWs will record MIDI coming from an instrument plugin.

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CLAPPERS SECTION

In this section you control the virtual clappers.

6. LoosenessSets the statistical “timing sloppiness” of the Clappers. One of the middle Clappers is always exactly on the beat, but with a higher Looseness setting the following claps will be more and more late. The Looseness factor is scaled with tempo, so if your song is fast the Looseness in actual time will be smaller. We found that this sounded the best musically.

7. Clappers Sets the number of Clappers between 1-8.

8. SpreadSets how the Clappers are spread out in the stereo field.

9. StrengthScales the incoming trigger’s velocity. This affects all incoming triggers: from the Rhythm Xpander sequencer, MIDI notes, and from the Trig Pad. Different velocity values trigger different samples, as well as scaling the volume for each clap.

10. PitchPitches the samples +/- 7 semitones.

11. Clap TypeSet what Clap Type is triggered by the Rhythm Xpander sequencer and the Trig Pad. All Clap Types can be triggered separately via MIDI.

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SPREAD CLOSE MICS ROOM & ECHO

0 % Mono Mono

25 % Mono Normal stereo

75 % Equal spread Stereo + Clapper pan

100 % Panned hard L or R Panned hard L or R

CLAP TYPE DESCRIPTION MIDI KEY

BASIC A standard handclap All Cs

BRIGHT Three finger clap, in Flamenco

clapping called “claro”

All Ds

SOFT Clap with cupped hands, in

Flamenco clapping called

“sorda”

All Es

SNAP Finger snap All Fs

MASTER SECTION Here you control the overall volume and panning of all claps.

12. Pan - Pans the clappers in the stereo field.

13. Volume - Sets the overall volume of Hand Clap Studio.

EFFECTS SECTION Hand Clap Studio comes with a small set of effects, enabling you to quickly adapt the sound to your particular mix without adding external plugins or EQ.

14. Tilt EQ - A combined high- and lowpass filter that can brighten or darken the sound.

15. Presence - boosts around 3kHz to make the claps cut through the mix.

16. Comp - A compressor to make the claps sit better in the mix.

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RHYTHM XPANDER SECTION The Rhythm Expander is a simple pattern sequencer that triggers the currently selected Clap Type. The sequencer starts and stops with the playback of your song.

17. On/Off - Switches the sequencer on and off. Automate this to make your claps play in certain sections of your song. Set it to off if you want to record the claps as MIDI notes in your DAW instead.

18. Pattern A/B - There are two programmable patterns called A and B, if you for example want different claps in the verse and chorus.

19. MIDI Export - Drag this to your DAW timeline to copy the pattern.

20. Pattern Steps - 16 buttons corresponding to the 16ths of one bar. Click these to toggle the triggers on and off.

21. Accent Switch - The Rhythm Xpander has three velocity levels: Hard, Mid and Soft. Set the desired Accent and then click a Pattern Step to set it to the selected Accent level. You can also Shift-click the Pattern Step buttons for Hard, or Alt-click for Soft, without using the Accent Switch.

22. Slide - Use this to slide the whole pattern forwards or backwards in time compared to your DAW’s timeline. In combination with Looseness, you can get some really sloppy claps!

KEYBOARD MODIFIERS To speed up the workflow, Hand Clap Studio comes with some keyboard modifiers:

• Cmd + click a control to reset it to default

• Shift + drag a knob for more precise control

• Rhythm Xpander steps:

‣ Alt + click to set it to Soft

‣ Cmd + click to set it to Mid

‣ Shift + click ro set it to Hard

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CREDITS

From left: Niklas Backlund, Anders Ljung, Pelle Jacobsson, Micke Herrström. Missing in action: Erik Söderberg.

Robotic Bean are Niklas Backlund, Anders Ljung and Erik Söderberg - https://roboticbean.com

Claps performed by Pelle Jacobsson - https://www.facebook.com/pillowpeacemusic/

Samples recorded by Micke Herrström - http://www.atlantisstudion.se

Video voice-over by Nicholas Curry.

Video and demo songs by Jimmy Svensson - https://www.facebook.com/JimmySvenssonMusic

Photos by Bengt Rahm - http://www.bengtrahm.com

Web programming by Richard Brattlund - https://richardbrattlund.se

BIG thanks to:

Klevgränd for helping us setting up the webshop, Joachim Ekermann (XLN Audio) for recording tips and tricks, Urs Heckmann (U-He) for programming tips, Tengan, Ruben Engzell and Magnus Frykberg for user testing, and our testers: Benedict, challism, effots, Koshdukai, ncurry, ravasb, sbader, and tiker01.

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